20 Tetzaveh: Day 6 (Friday)

10 Adar 5786.

Today's reading is Exodus 29:38 to 29:46.

This is the link to Daily Chumash with Rashi at Chabad.

The Daily Wisdom from the Lubavitcher Rebbe is titled "Rewards."

On 27 February 2026 at 6:13 AM EST, Jonathan writes:

As I read this section of Exodus, I cannot help but imagine that I am in a Jewish Christian Yeshiva on the Emmaus Road. 

On one hand, Christian sages in the Yeshiva are explaining how these words were revealed to Moses by Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father. The morning lamb was John the Baptist, and the afternoon lamb was Jesus in the flesh. From the beginning of time, it was planned this way. As we read further, to Exodus 29:42-46, we have to imagine that it is Jesus speaking ahead of time through Moses about the events of 30-33 AD:

"For the generations to come, this burnt offering shall be made regularly at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the LORD, where I will meet you to speak with you. I will also meet with the Israelites there, and that place will be consecrated by My glory. So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and I will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve Me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. And they will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God." (BSB)

On the other hand, Jewish sages in the Yeshiva are describing this interpretation as blasphemous - and not only for the obvious reasons. Here, for example, Rabbi Zev Garber passionately interrogates why a true Jewish Messiah would recite anything but the Shema as he died on a Roman cross (cf. Matthew 27:46):

Is it enough to tell Rabbi Garber that Jesus was citing the opening line of Psalm 22?

A subset of Jews and the Christians in the Yeshiva are debating God's merciful end of animal sacrifice and the liberation of today's vegan "Israelites" from the racism, classism, sexism, and speciesism of an overpopulated and unsustainable "Egypt."

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the holy opportunity to study your Torah today. We ask that you pour out your blessings on all those who precede us, join us, and follow us in this effort, and that you make us good round-the-clock examples and emissaries of the Noahide Laws. 

Amen and Shalom.